Photo Credit: Ashabot

Many people say animal testing is definitely reasonable because apparently the life of a human outweighs the life of an animal. Yes, we have made much progress in finding new cures that work on being tested, but over 100,000 people die from newly prescribed medicine that cured the disease in animals. Animals have different genetic codes than humans and therefore just because the cure of a disease works on an animal does not mean that it will 100% work on humans.

Animals are being tortured during testing. They are being forced fed chemicals and are left in pain while they are locked away and are restrained. Over half of the millions animals being tested either die during the testing or are killed after tests. The Animal Welfare Act is suppose to make sure scientists treat animals being tested with good care. They must provide adequate housing, sanitation, treatment, nutrition, and veterinary care. But the Animal Welfare Act only protects animals before and after testing. So scientists don’t have to follow it during testing!

So why test on animals if its the new cures that work on animals don’t work on humans? Why put the animals through pain and suffering if the cures might not always work? I still believe that it is important for scientists to keep on developing new cures, but there are other alternatives to finding these cures other than animal testing such as using human skin cells or human skin  leftover from surgical procedures. These are ways that can still develop new cures and there is probably other methods to use to test scientists new theories and cures. So do you support animal testing?